Latest Articles about Foreign Policy
The Limits of Geopolitical Thinking on Belarus
President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s visit to Moscow, which had been scheduled for November 25–26 and then postponed, eventually occurred on December 15. By most accounts, the contentious issues facing Lukashenka and his counterpart, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, were not resolved: the two sides neither agreed... MORE
Nazarbayev Blocks Russian TV in Kazakhstan
In slightly over a generation, Kazakhstan has gone from being a republic in which ethnic Russians formed a plurality, to one in which ethnic Kazakhs form a two-thirds majority. But to keep that country within Russia’s orbit, Moscow still counts on the fact that most... MORE
Waking Up? China Moves on Environmental Issues at Paris Summit
In 2009, the image of Chinese ministers asleep at their desks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was taken as a metaphor for the world’s torpid movement on environmental issues. With the results of the recent Paris Conference on Climate Change showing... MORE
New Tensions, Old Problems on the Sino-Indian Border
As China deepens its economic and strategic relations with Pakistan, and makes diplomatic in-roads with Nepal and Myanmar, it is worth examining an issue that continues to mar Sino-Indian relations. The China-India border dispute has long stirred tensions between Beijing and New Delhi, in spite... MORE
Conserved Conflict: Russia’s Innovations in Ukraine’s East
Russia’s conflict undertaking in Ukraine’s east fits within patterns familiar from other post-Soviet conflicts, initiated by Russia and conserved on Russian terms with international assistance (see EDM, December 17). However, Russia’s war in Ukraine’s east involves a number of major political and military innovations in... MORE
Islamic State and West Africa
2015 marked the year when “Boko Haram” evolved from an ostensibly domestic-rooted and globally unaffiliated militant group into a “Province” in the Islamic State’s global structure. This transition was formalized on March 7, 2015, when “Boko Haram” leader Abubakr Shekau pledged baya’a, or allegiance, to... MORE
Europe’s Jihadist Pipeline to Syria
As previous papers have outlined, the Islamic State poses a range of different threats to different people. One is a more or less conventional threat to the state structure in the Middle East. The other is an unconventional threat to countries further afield, including in... MORE
Caliphate at War: Islamic State Ideology, War Fighting and State Formation
A series of books that I remember from my teenage days when I was in school in France sought to provide a succinct explanation for a variety of phenomena. The series title was De Quoi S’Agit-Il? This roughly translates as “what does it mean or... MORE
Conserved Conflict: Russia’s Pattern in Ukraine’s East
Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine’s east—directly and by proxy—has saddled Ukraine with a “frozen” conflict in its Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. The parallel situation in Crimea also qualifies as a “frozen conflict,” insofar as Russia’s forcible annexation is not recognized internationally, and in that sense... MORE
The Kurdish Periphery
The Kurds play a key role in the war against the Islamic State as they are located on the periphery of the jihadist organization’s two de-facto capitals, Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. As a result, both Western states and Russia are courting the... MORE